Week 1: Choose your piece!
Welcome to the Lisztomaniac Challenge — and the start of our Liszt adventure!
Franz Liszt is one of the most exciting, imaginative, and influential composers in the piano repertoire. When many people hear “Liszt,” they immediately think of impossible virtuosity, flying octaves, and the great showpieces.
And yes, some participants will be taking on those works during this challenge!
But Liszt wrote music for pianists of many different levels, and this challenge is about exploring all corners of his music.
Whether you’re learning a Consolation, a short piece from Years of Pilgrimage, a Liebestraum, a Hungarian Rhapsody, or even one of the great virtuoso masterpieces, there’s a place for you here.
This Week’s Goal
Choose one Liszt piece, or one excerpt, to stay with throughout the challenge.
A few ideas:
- A piece you’ve always wanted to learn
- A shorter Liszt work that feels approachable
- A beautiful excerpt from a larger dream piece
- A piece that challenges your sound, imagination, or technique
- One of the big virtuoso works, if you’re feeling bold
This Week, Share:
What piece did you choose?
Why this piece?
- What draws you to Liszt’s music?
- Is there a musical or technical challenge you hope to work through this month?
If you’d like, post a recording of where you’re starting from, even if it’s just a rough first read. We’d love to hear it.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore Liszt’s sound world together and make meaningful progress, wherever we are in our musical journey.
Let the Lisztomania begin!
44 replies
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Thank you Dominic, for this wonderful challenge. I would like to learn Liszt's transcription of the Prelude and Fugue in A minor by Bach. I aim to finish the Prelude during this time and hope to try the Fugue as well.
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Also from my side a big thanks for organizing this challenge! I would like to use the challenge to learn Liszt’s transcription of the Schubert song “Frühlingsglaube” (spring faith), S.558/7.
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May I take the liberty:
here comes...
The Transcendental Etudes Faction!
No. 1 - "Preludio"- Noel Nguyen, Kerstin
No. 2 - "Fusées" - Noel Nguyen
No. 3 - "Paysage" - Thurmond, Maria?
No. 4 -"Mazeppa" - Judy Kuan
No. 5: - "Feux Follets" - Yihan
No. 6: - "Vision" - Alexander Weymann (measures 1-31) and Noel Nguyen (measures 32-70), Thurmond
No. 7: -"Eroica" - Dustin Anderson
No. 12 - "Chasse-Neige" (measures 18-36) - Sindre Skarelven
Get to your pianos, my friends!
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I think I'll look through the Via Crucis and see what I like of them. I'd love one I could sing with. I'm feeling the need for (emotional) depth, and these should provide that. I'm sure I'll find many challenges along the way!
And Thurmond and I will work on Sancta Caecilia together (I'll sing), though the challenge there will certainly not be the plethora of notes! (I find his choral music to be incredibly beautiful.)
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I will work on two excerpts for this challenge. One being Chasse-neige measures 18-36, and the other La Campanella where I'm hoping to learn it up until the cadenza for this period. The idea is to have this ready for the end of October, but I hope to use this challenge to get a great start to these pieces. And I certainly expect that the technique involved needs a great deal of time for integration.
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I will be doing the Schubert-Liszt Standchen. Doing the easy version because I am working on a exam! :)
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I am joining this challenge mostly in spirit to add encouragement and cheer on everyone else here participating.
I decided to be disciplined and force myself not to take on more than I can reasonably handle in a month. This rule is in place for myself until I clear off some of the huge commitments I already (gladly) made over the past six months. The goal was to only pick something that is short and that I can already sight-read today.
I am reading from others that their will be another Liszt party at the end of October? Being optimistic, I'll plan for something more adventuresome for that. Probably one of a handful of Liszt/Schubert Lieder that I currently have on the go (more than half done currently). Or maybe something from Années de pèlerinage or Harmonies poétiques et religieuses?
Based on the easiest pieces I feel like playing now hear is a list of five:
5. Klavierstück in A-flat major, No. 2, S. 189a
4. Trübe Wolken (Nuages gris), S. 199
3. Der Leiermann from Schubert's Winterreise, S.561
2. En Rêve (Dreaming) - Nocturne, S. 207
.....and the winner is
1. Romance "O pourquoi donc", S. 169
I did not really know what piece I would pick exactly before I started writing this. If I did this tomorrow the answer would be different but today this is what came to be. I'm pleased. This will be a nice warm-up to my other two Fantasies that consume me. By the way, the Schumann Fantasie, Op. 17 and the Chopin Op. 10 Etudes are dedicated to Franz Liszt ! Does that count for anything here? ;-)
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Hi everyone, I hope to learn Eglogue from Years of Pilgrimage I - Switzerland. Looking forward to this challenge :) Derek
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Hi! Thanks a lot for the challenge!
I have always loved and admired Liszt, especially as a teenager. Back then, I even read some of his biographies and was quite immersed. Now, am less enthusiastic, which is mainly due to lacking technical skills and maybe even courage to approach his works with diligence and passion. However, his music fascinates me still. I have learned some of his organ works and find them quite unique.
For the challenge, I’m in with Harmonies du soir, but that will be (hopefully) presentable in October only. My last months have been extremely busy with non-musical stuff, so I’m quite behind the piano schedule I thought I could keep despite everything else. And the piece touches my ceiling of technical ability.
For this month (and as a little diversion and warm-up), I’m choosing Paganini-etude No.5.